30th May 2019 - Andrew

The wine is never filtered and only the natural yeast from the island air is used. All this is the traditional ‘old way’ recorded and transcribed by the vineyard owner in the late 80's from the memory of the old folk on the island.

Nikola also shows us their traditional amphitheatre - if you stand in the center and speak your voice booms back at you with bass and resonance - startling.

Inside she shows us some old Ikarian stuff - clothes, amphoras, clay beehives and the smoking pots to quell them.

And then we taste. Their wines are spectacular - unusual, strange and the weirdest colours! For me they redefine what constitutes good wine - complex, tasty but entirely different. They have been regularly winning euro-awards so it’s not just the novelty value. Their massively labour intensive process yields fantastic results. Even simple ideas like dry or sweet are hard to pinpoint with some of their wines - an old red (more like amber in colour) is almost sweet to start but ends full of dry leather and tannins.

Despite the high costs and complex carry problem we buy three bottles and are given a fourth and some honey and originum (all carry the mineral taste). Then home to Thea’s satisfied. We stay in and eat early after a long day.

30th May 2019 - Cara

They’re winning awards now (as we leave the winemaker’s wife arrives with the news they’ve won a silver in a big european competition) but they face an uphill battle to be recognized and allowed in certain categories. The wine is unfiltered, it looks heavy and it breaks protocol.

It’s all so beautiful. The granite bath in the vineyards, the buried amphoras in a row beneath a trellis leading to a small amphitheatre (seats about 100-200 people) where they do plays in harvest season. Sounds wonderful - it’s the first time I’ve wanted to be here in the middle of a tourist season.

She shows us the feedback sound quality - it’s magical. I’ll never forget the way I felt the sound move through me - the power of my voice! The winemaker is a pharmacist for whom wine making is a hobby. He still runs his pharmacy in Chritos Nachos. He researched how wines were made from ancient texts (nothing modern available as the techniques have been lost) and asking people about folklore (and a bit of archeology). Then he made this winery with traditional techniques. Lots of manpower and very small yields but he doesn't care about that. Beautiful!

She shows us their museum. Great historic storytelling: eg storage for wine and the siphones to get it out. (like those people use to get petrol out of a car but more pleasant to get a mouthful of wine); A jug with three spouts so you could serve people without readjusting the position; goat knapsack with fur and legs still attached.

We buy a Fokiano red, a Begleri white and Tama, an award winning natural sweet wine.They grow grapes at three different altitudes to experiment with the effects. The tasting is spectacular. She lets us taste extra bottles because we connect about the wines. They are like nothing we have tasted before. Once again, as with Assyrtiko in Santorini, I’m blown away by the quality and convention-breaking uniqueness of greek wines!

I pick up some nastyish stings while tasting. At least I slap and there is blood, so I know I've been had but don't think anything of it at the time. We part from Nikola like good friends and go home in good cheer. What a great day!

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